I have the following model which I'm trying to run. Its a fairly simple SEM that's running well, but however the variable conscript_office is categorical (with 5 categories). Mplus now seems to treat it as a continuous variable as I get just one estimate for the regression between systolic blood pressure (syst) and conscript_office.

How do I specify that conscript office is indeed a categorical variable with 5 categories? And do I need to change the model command as well?

MODEL:

syst on bmi; syst on bwtgestage_sd; syst on education; syst on conscript_office; syst on age;

bmi on bwtgestage_sd; bmi on education; bmi on conscript_office; bmi on age;

Conscript_office is a covariate. Covariates can be binary or continous and in both cases they are treated as continuous. If conscript_office is nominal, you need to create a set of dummy variables. If it is ordinal, you can leave it as it or create a set of dummy variables.